“My business.”
Cherie raised her middle finger, but her lips parted in a smile behind it. “Why don’t you talk to Ricky’s boss and get him some extra duty? He needs the overtime. Me and Crystal need a break from his crap, too. Not to mention, you could come around more often.”
Forrest thought briefly of Crystal Delaune, Cherie’s flirtatious sixteen-year-old, then banished the image. “Patrol isn’t my division, I told you that.”
“You could still do it if you wanted. You just don’t want to come over any more than you do now.”
Forrest buttoned his shirt and shoved the tail beneath his belt. “If I came any more often, you’d be as bored with me as you are with Ricky. Unless I marked you up good, and then he’d know about it. Which is what you want, deep down, isn’t it? To blow all this shit up?”
“You’re the one who shaved my coochie. Nothing subtle about that. Ricky’s already asked me about it like five times. Maybe you’re the one who wants to blow up my marriage.”
Forrest laughed. “Like you couldn’t lie your way out of that little dilemma with about four brain cells.”
Cherie pouted and pulled the covers over her rump. “You think you know so much. You really think I’d get bored if we was together?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Forrest said, strapping on his gun belt. “You ain’t gonna get the chance.”
Cherie scrabbled onto her knees and grabbed his belt buckle. “One more time before you go. I know you can do it. I can tell when you’ve taken a pill.”
Forrest shook his head. Now that he’d relieved his need, the prospect of collecting cash up at Fort Knox far outweighed that of a second round with Cherie. Now, if she was willing to bring Crystal into it …
Forrest’s secure cell phone rang in his pocket. Taking it out, he saw that the caller was Billy Knox. His cousin only called in cases of extreme emergency.
“What’s up?” he answered, and Cherie gave an exaggerated pout.
“Henry Sexton met with somebody else tonight.”
“Put me out of my misery.”
“Dr. Tom Cage’s son. The mayor of Natchez.”
This took Forrest off guard. “Where did this happen?”
“Over at the Beacon offices. They were together quite a while. Then Cage called the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office for protection on the way back to Natchez.”
Forrest’s threat-detection instinct went on high alert. His mind raced through possible explanations for this turn of events.
“I got that from our mole in Walker Dennis’s HQ,” Billy said. “What you want to do?”
“Doing nothing is usually best, William.”
“‘Usually’ don’t cut it this time. Penn Cage hasn’t always been mayor of a one-horse town. He was a big-time prosecutor in Houston, and he knows people in Washington. I think we’ve reached the point of no return on Henry Sexton.”
Forrest looked over at Cherie’s breasts, which hung heavily over the sheet. She was watching him like an expectant hunting dog. “You mean you think Snake had the right idea.”
“Maybe so, yeah. I don’t want to wake up and see our names splashed across the front page of the newspaper.”
“The Beacon’s only published once a week, and the next edition’s three days from now. So stay cool. I’ll think about this and get back to you.”
“Okay, but the Natchez Examiner runs every goddamned day. And Penn Cage’s girlfriend would love to run with a story like this. There’s no telling how much Glenn Morehouse told Sexton, or what Sexton told Cage tonight.”
Cherie reached out toward Forrest’s belt again, but he slapped her hand away. He never worried about Henry Sexton, because he’d had a state police tech specialist plant a monitoring program in the Beacon’s intranet that gave him access to every story being drafted at the newspaper, often days before publication. That tech had also installed a keystroke recorder in Henry’s home computer, one that secretly transmitted everything Henry had typed in the past twenty-four hours to another cop who sifted through the reports every day. But Billy was right: Henry’s involvement with Penn Cage had opened a conduit to his girlfriend, and Forrest had no mechanism in place to monitor her.
“What’s the mayor’s family situation?” he asked.
“You remember his old man, Doc Cage. The mother’s still alive, and Penn’s sister lives in England.”
“Kids?”
“One girl, about twelve, I guess. And I think he’s engaged to the Masters girl.”
Forrest smiled with satisfaction. “Plenty of pressure points, then. I’ll get back to you.”
“Please don’t take all night, cuz. I need to make some decisions.”
“I hear you. Did you get that Buffett show arranged?”
“No. His management’s squeezing me hard on the money, and my plate’s a little full right now anyway.”
“It’s your birthday, man. Chill. I’ll chip in a quarter of the fee.”
“Seriously?”
“Talk to you later, Parrothead.”
Forrest ended the call and slid his phone back into his pocket.
As he stared at Cherie’s breasts with renewed interest, she said, “Did I tell you I saw your wife at Esplanade mall the other day?”
Ice instantly coated Forrest’s heart. He picked up his coat from the chair, knowing she hadn’t finished with this subject.
“She looks a lot better than you told me,” Cherie went on. “I was downright jealous.” She gave him a chiding look. “I couldn’t help wondering what she would do if she knew what we get up to over here.”
The ice on Forrest’s heart climbed up his throat. How can these bitches be so goddamned stupid? Like possums running toward a spotlight on a varmint rifle …